(PLEASE SEE ETA AT TOP OF ARTICLE) 82 year old taken by ICE at a green card replacement appointment

His family was never informed where he was or how to get ahold of him until he was in a foreign hospital... despite the fact that he was a permanent legal resident of the US

ETA, July 21: Guatemala says they have not received Luis into the country, and DHS says that Luis has not been in for a green card, has not been detained, and was not deported. In addition, a Chilean journalist went to the hospital Luis was meant to be at and has found no record of him AND has found a Chilean death certificate from 2019 from a man with the same name and birth date. The granddaughter has stopped responding to reporter's requests for comments. So it certainly looks like this story may have been fabricated for some reason by the granddaughter.

More here, from the original reporters.



Original article below:

Luis Leon came to the US 38 years ago.

He had been tortured in his native Chile by the administration of the dictator Augusto Pinochet. The US gave him political asylum and he came legally to the United States in 1987.

Luis built a life here in the US. He worked at a leather manufacturing plant, raised four kids, and eventually retired.

He’s well-loved in his neighborhood in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He likes to garden and fish and do small repairs for the neighbors.

In June he lost his wallet, which had his green card in it.

No problem. Luis and his wife made an appointment to get it replaced.

But when they arrived for the appointment, Luis was handcuffed and taken away, and his wife was held for ten hours until her granddaughter showed up to get her.

His family couldn’t find him for a full month. The immigration detention tracker never showed him as in ICE custody. Immigration officials had no answers they were willing to give, despite multiple calls. The family called local prisons and hospitals and even morgues but couldn’t find anyone who knew where Luis was.

A relative in Chile called the family yesterday to let them know that 82-year-old Luis was now in a hospital in Guatemala… apparently deported to this country by the US government, though ICE still won’t even confirm that Luis showed up for his green card replacement appointment, let alone that they had him in custody and deported him.

Now that the family has found Luis, ICE says they are “investigating” what happened.

Sometimes when I share these stories, people push back and say something like, “If he was here for all these years, why didn’t he become a citizen.” It’s a really weird and ignorant question for a variety of reasons, but more importantly it’s off topic to this post. So before we change subjects to why someone might not get their US citizenship, let me pose a few counter questions: Do you think legal permanent resident of the US should be taken into custody at what should be a normal administrative appointment? Do you think people should be held with no access to lawyers or family? Should permanent legal residents be deported to a country other than their home country and put in a hospital without ever informing family or legal representation? Because that’s what we’re talking about.

Meanwhile, we have no idea if ICE deported a legal, permanent resident of the United States on purpose or somehow “by accident.”

Certainly since ICE’s tripled quota for arrests they’ve had a lot more “mistakes.” And I’m not just talking about the more famous moments, like “administrative errors” that involve illegally deporting someone to El Salvador.

We also have things like:

* A US marshal being mistakenly detained by ICE.
* ICE apologized for detaining US citizens because it caught them… speaking Spanish.
* ICE claims assaults against agents had increased between 500-700% but then released statistics that showed — despite the huge increase in ICE arresting people — ICE’s own self-reported stats of assaults barely increased at all. Probably because they’ve been arresting people on bogus assault claims and then never charged any of them because it was just an excuse to put bystanders in handcuffs.
* ICE accidentally sent a 15 year old to the Everglades Concentration Camp because they didn’t verify his age or identity.

Meanwhile, Luis — a permanent resident of the US who came here legally, had legal status and doesn’t have so much as a parking ticket — has been taken from his family, kept from legal counsel, deported to a country he has never been from, and put in the hospital.

Why?

Because he lost his wallet.

ETA July 20, 9:44 Pacific: Guatemala is saying that they have not received this gentleman, and that their agreement with the US does not extend to Chilean citizens. Some people -- including immigration advocates -- are saying that the situation is looking fishy and may be a hoax. I've reached out to the original reporters to see if they can shed any light on things. Here's a link from the AP that includes the Guatemala gvt statement.

ETA July 21, 8:00 Pacific: DHS has now released a statement that they never saw Luis, arrested him, or deported him, along with some overwrought propaganda. But the important point being, they're saying that the entire story is false, including that this gentleman never showed up for a green card appointment. Still waiting on confirmation from the reporter who first wrote the articles, but the story is looking pretty shaky.

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SOURCES

Luis’s story at the Morning Call.

ICE’s tripled quota.

ICE mistakenly detains a US marshal.

ICE detains US citizens for speaking Spanish.

ICE assault claims.

ICE mistakenly puts 15 year old in Everglades camp.

P.S. I sometimes get people asking why I call “Alligator Alcatraz” a concentration camp. It’s mostly because it fits every known definition of a concentration camp, and I don’t use joke names for concentration camps. This isn’t in any way to downplay the horrors of the Holocaust (where concentration camps sometimes became extermination or death camps), but rather to make sure that these current camps are included in the long history of concentration camps on American soil, whether called “reservations” or “internment camps” or “private prisons.” We can have a conversation about that, but if you want to have that conversation, please start by sharing a link to the definition of “concentration camp” you’d like to use for the conversation.



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